Everybody knows someone that has been affected by addiction. From serious addictions like drugs, tobacco, gambling, and alcohol to (seemingly) harmless addictions like caffeine, shopping, TV, or food.
Our faith is the greatest addiction beating tool that mankind has at their disposal. Through faith we can get the strength we need to break the addictive cycle. Through faith we can evaluate our progress and stay on the right path. Through faith we can rise up and beat the odds, we can transform our destructive addictive behaviors into constructive actions.
If you know someone who is struggling with addiction, we explain in this article how faith can help anyone break free from the vicious cycle.
Mental addiction and physical addiction are the two main types of addiction. They are not mutually exclusive and many common addictions combine both the mental and the physical sides.
Physical addictions are what many of us will automatically think of when we think of addictions. Things like cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, and caffeine fall into this category. Physical addiction means that there is a chemical of some sort that your body has become dependent on. For example the caffeine in coffee, the nicotine in cigarettes, or the alcohol in beer.
Things like pornography, gambling and shopping are examples of a mental addiction. There is no chemical dependency, it is a purely mental trap. Most people with physical addictions to a substance will also be mentally addicted to the substance too.